One Fool's Journey: A Mushroom Kingdom Story
by Mentat
Summary: Nintendo and Miyamoto are both awesome, and this would not exist without them. The rules of fan fiction are never as set as some people would like to believe they are. In many mediums, rules can and are discarded.


Most days' reality doesn't take a nosedive in exchange for what must be some drug-addled nightmare. I truly hope that's what is going on. I truly hope my senses have taken leave, and that I've somehow used or ingested drugs. I hope so, because if this is real…

Hell, how do I even embrace that idea?

So, you've read this far and I am still too self-absorbed to tell you who I am. I was hoping this would be read by someone who knows me, or knew me, as the case may be when you read this.

Call me Mentat. Hopefully these will strike you as the works of a madman. If you understand these writings, that will be no consolation to me, as sanity strikes me as far worse than accepting this madness as real.

That makes no sense. Allow me to rephrase: I would rather be mad, and these experiences false then to be sane and believe them to be real. But what is reality if not what is perceived? How, if I cannot be reached through the senses can I know what is real and what is not? All my senses say this madness; this insanity is real, genuine, terrifying reality.

The first paragraph should have gone here, but it didn't occur to me until I finished this. But I'm writing this as it occurs, so bear with me. I might ramble, but I think if we swapped places you might be rambling too. I hope. I hope not. I honestly don't know whether to feel contempt for your safety, or to pity your understanding of my world.

Let's begin.

It was a long day for a walk, and the search for employment was genuine misery. Not owning a vehicle tends to make job searches difficult, but on the plus side, at least I didn't have gas and insurance dragging me further into the morass I had fallen into.

Anyways, I had the ill fortune of walking a little farther than normal. In fact, it's safe to say I got lost in thought. Even at this point, my grip on sanity can be said to have been tenuous; I had (and continue to have) a rather disconcerting habit of talking to myself. It's actually almost compulsive, but it was a quirk, and nothing more. So I saw it then, and so I see it now.

In any case, I got lost in my own thoughts, and actually walked out of the city into an area I had never been. I awoke from my own thoughts at the sounds of thunder. Lucky for me I'm crazy enough to have an umbrella on me most of the time. Trust me on this one: if you walk for distance, never forget the umbrella unless you enjoy being rained upon. Under those circumstances feel free to forget it, as sometimes a rainstorm feels pretty good.

Such were my rambling thoughts at the time. My solution was simple, as always: turn around, and walk back. I knew this was going to take a long time, perhaps hours, and my legs started screaming at me for mercy. I had no intention of giving them any. Perhaps I would regret the decision in a matter of days, and my legs would gripe for the next several days, but today, resting would do me no good. My legs would just have to get over it.

After an hour or two, I roared my frustration to the skies and pushed on. (…I never said I was normal, so that might influence your perception of my tale. So be it.) I wanted to cry, but I was reaching that point where pain overrode reason, and where I could use the pain as fuel. It wouldn't last. Soon I'd find a landmark, and I'd simply slog back until I got back home.

I didn't know this path would only go downhill from here. Be patient, reader, hopefully my tale will at least humor you, even if it is not real. I hope not, for that means I am in an institute, or in a corner of some structure or another tripping out.

I saw the place that would change my life. Some little roadside pipe, looked sort of like one of those concrete pipes for drainage, except someone made this one out of green metal. Was it aged copper? I remember something about this in chemistry class, but it felt smooth, like it was alloyed this way.

At the time, I couldn't have cared less. All I knew was that my legs refused to go any further, and decided to rebel. This was annoying, so I cooperated. I figured I wasn't getting home for a few more hours anyhow, so I believed I could rest for a few minutes.

That's when reality took a dive of the deep end of sanity.

It was at this point that I got pulled into the pipe. I didn't realize that then, and you are not misreading this. The pipe itself pulled me in. At least, that's what I think happened. What I felt at the time was a sense of disorientation, of suction and the inability to resist, like falling only sideways. The light at the end grew smaller, and I felt my head hit the top of the pipe. My body was just too tired, and my consciousness blurred.

My last thought? Well, aside from that flash of pain and dullness, of course.

What's going on?

Yeah, my last thought was that of weakness and surprise. Nothing like the wit I told my friends I would express in better times. I honestly thought was going to die for a moment, and that question is my last conscious thought.

Retarded. I couldn't think of a better thought than that.

My tale doesn't end here, though. If it did, you clearly wouldn't be reading it. Besides, who needs that fourth wall anyways?

I awoke as though from a horrible sleep, one in which I overslept and had that horrible feeling between tired and not tired. I had a sinking feeling when I awoke on a stone cavern, cold stone beneath my hands and my face. When I opened my eyes, it was dim with the light coming from another pipe like the one that got me into this mess. The air was moist and thick with humidity. I saw a vague light ahead, and I forced myself to rise and walk towards it.

I tire quickly of self-pity, and I will now do you the mercy of sparing you from that much at least from here on. If I am mad, the least I can do is go over the deep end with as much dignity as I can muster. From here on, I will attempt not to cram my misery down your throat, and at least pretend like I possess some inner fire and courage. If you share my visions, then unlike me, you will not suffer alone as I have done, for you have before you another who has gone before you.

With that in mind, I do cave into that every now and then. A human reaction, but it is an annoying one.

In any case, it had to have been madness itself that lead me on. I saw no way back in this light, and even though my legs felt like I had beaten them with hammers, I walked towards the light. What did I have to lose at this point?

I looked at the pipe, looked up in it, and the pipe pulled me up inside. Again. I didn't know it, but this was going to become a recurring theme.

I yelled as the sun blasted my eyes. I didn't realize it yet, but I was holding my umbrella, which was surprisingly intact. And the landscape before me was some kind of wasteland that I was sure couldn't be real.

I saw the ground made of some kind of brown rock and cracked sediment, like mud that had caked over into some kind of path. I saw bricks floating in the air, like some kind of Escher painting made real before my eyes. I saw ancient structures buried in the sands beyond the pathway, structures that spoke of an ancient mighty power that knew no equal. I saw more pipes like the one just emerged from. I saw the landscape cut apart by deep ravines that would trap the fool who fell within, if the fall itself didn't kill them outright. I saw isolated brushes and stone edifices that appeared to have eyes and swore were watching me. The clouds shared this same bizarre characteristic-no, with the clouds it was worse. I could _see_ the eyes in the clouds.

I recall laughing. Laughing hysterically at how insane this whole place was. I wasn't sure why, but I had caught a massive case of the giggles over those eyes. I looked out onto this forbidding landscape, and at that point, my life as I knew it was over.


End file.
